Chippa coach finds it hard to sign on defenders

Chippa United coach Dan "Dance" Malesela is having sleepless nights in his bid to beef up the club's defence hit a brick wall  at the ABC Motsepe League national playoffs in Mangaung.

Malesela, who has been camping at the week-long tournament, expressed disappointment that he had not seen any potential defender to rope in at Chippa as he had hoped.

Coming to the City of Roses, the Chippa mentor was in a drive to seek out  two defenders, a centre-back and a left-back.

However, to his surprise, he found that the standard of the competition is at an all-time low.

"We are all here trying to see if we cannot get players for our clubs," he said.

"But what I am specifically looking for I cannot find.

"We need a left-back because we may lose Ruben Cloete to coaching and we have lost James Okwuosa at centre-back and we need replacements in those positions."

If the standard of play at this year's competition is anything to go by,  "Dance" believes, the game  in the country is in trouble.

"The standard has dropped because I have been attending these playoffs for years and I can say this is the lowest standard I have ever seen," he stated.

"If what we have here is our best teams, it does  not augur well for our football. We need to up the standard because surely we can do better than this."

With the exception of finding two defenders, Malesela was satisfied with the player personnel at his disposal before the start of the season.

Among preparations for Chippa towards next season, also lined up is a friendly with Kaizer Chiefs on July 23 which he was hoping would help gauge the level of fitness of his current crop of players and to  test new signings.